Stigmata - Movie Synopsis & Plot

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Frankie Paige (Patricia Arquette) is in her twenties. She works as a hairdresser. She has a boyfriend. There are a hundred other girls like Frankie Paige within a mile radius of her apartment.

But unlike all of them, things happen to Frankie-terrible things she can't understand or explain. And though she has tried everything to make them stop, they're just getting worse. She goes to doctors and psychologists, but even they can't answer the most important question: why her?

At the darkest moment of one of her episodes, a chance encounter with a local priest is caught on tape and the frightening implications of the incident drive the Vatican to send their own investigator, Andrew Kiernan (Gabriel Byrne). Confronted with the powerful force that has taken control of Frankie, Kiernan immediately recognizes the true danger she is in and he must search his own soul for the strength to save her life, even if it goes against everything he believes.

Patricia Arquette stars as Frankie Paige, a vivacious and outspoken Pittsburgh hairdresser whose life is suddenly and inexplicably thrown out of control by an unseen but powerful force. After a series of paranormal attacks which cause her to bleed from her head, hands and feet, Frankie is forced to seek medical help. Her relationships with her boyfriend, Steven (Patrick Muldoon) and co-workers Donna (Nia Long) and Jennifer (Portia de Rossi) begin to deteriorate as well.

When a vicious assault on Frankie in a public railway car is witnessed by a local priest, word is sent to the Vatican that the attacks may be religious in origin. A high -ranking Vatican official, Cardinal Houseman (Jonathan Pryce), dispatches Father Andrew Kiernan (Gabriel Byrne) to Pittsburgh to investigate.

Kiernan is more searcher than follower, a man of science whose job as a member of the Church's Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints is to debunk false miracles ... and verify unexplained phenomena such as bleeding statues or demonic possession.

But what he finds in Frankie will challenge his faith as a priest while stirring his own heart, finding himself thrown into her haunted world and powerfully drawn to protect and care for her despite admonitions from the Vatican.